British Steel rewards staff
British Steel, which completed the purchase of Tata Steel’s Long Products Europe business a year ago, has reported a profit of £47 million.
The company, which is owned by investment firm Greybull Capital, made a loss of £79 million in the previous financial year.
British Steel, which employs 3,000 staff in Scunthorpe, said it had “significantly improved” profitability despite a 44% rise in the cost of raw materials. It is to give workers a 5% stake in the business after a “remarkable” transformation.
Intel predicts $7tn driverless car industry by 2050
The autonomous car industry will be worth $7 trillion in annual revenues, according to a study by Intel.
The report, prepared by Strategy Analytics, predicts autonomous vehicles will create a massive economic opportunity that will scale from $800 billion in 2035 (the base year of the study) to $7 trillion by 2050.
An estimated 585,000 lives could be saved due to autonomous vehicles between 2035 and 2045, the study predicts.
UK aerospace sector racks up £8bn so far this year
Commercial aircraft deliveries in the first four months of the year continue to closely match the production pace set in 2016, with 406 aircraft delivered so far, according to figures from trade association ADS.
An estimated value of £8 billion to UK industry is the highest figure on record for January to April, with £5.5 billion attributed to deliveries of 109 wide-body aircraft and a further £2.5 billion to single aisle aircraft.
Tesco makes first robot delivery
Supermarket giant Tesco has completed its first robot delivery in London as part of a UK trial.
The company carried out a “one-off trial” as part of its Tesco Now initiative in partnership with Starship Technologies.
Amec wins Saudi contract
Amec Foster Wheeler has been awarded a five-year contract by Saudi Aramco for facilities required as part of the expansion of the Marjan offshore and onshore oilfield in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia.
Amec will deliver the pre-FEED, FEED, overall programme management, and other support services for an additional 300,000 barrels per day gas/oil separation train, a world scale greenfield gas processing plant, a cogeneration facility and modifications to an existing facility to add natural gas liquids fractionation capacity.
ESA works with MTC on 3D printing
The European Space Agency (ESA) is to work with the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) to develop additive manufacturing technology.
The MTC, home to the UK National Centre for Additive Manufacturing, will manage the new ESA Additive Manufacturing Benchmarking Centre (AMBC), which will provide a simple and easy way for ESA projects and hi-tech companies to investigate the potential of additive.
Nuclear workers to vote on new pensions deal
Unite, the country’s largest union, it to put a new and improved pension deal for the 16,000 employees of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to its members.
The proposals were hammered out between energy minister Jesse Norman, and unions Unite, the GMB and Aslef.
EC approves GE-Baker Hughes merger
The European Commission has cleared General Electric’s acquisition of oilfield services firm Baker Hughes.
The Commission concluded that the transaction would not adversely affect competition in the relevant markets.
The deal, which was announced on 31 October 2016, is likely to close in mid-2017.
Housebuilding boosts UK construction sector
UK construction companies experienced a sharp rebound in business activity during May, helped by the fastest upturn in residential work since the end of 2015, according to the latest IHS Markit/CIPS UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).
The seasonally adjusted PMI posted 56.0 in May, up sharply from 53.1 in April, to signal the strongest expansion of overall business activity for 17 months. However, the latest figures are still much lower than the post-crisis peak seen in January 2014 (64.6).
May data also pointed to solid rises in civil engineering and commercial building. Although commercial development remained the weakest performing sub-category, the latest rise in activity was the fastest since March 2016.
Funding available for oil and gas technology
The Oil & Gas Technology Centre has launched two new ‘Calls for Ideas’ to identify, support and fund solutions which use robotics to reduce inspection costs, and to unlock the 225 marginal discoveries in small pools across the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS).
Each call has a fund of about £1 million to invest and organisations can grab a slice if they demonstrate their technology concept or idea can deliver a transformation in asset integrity and small pools.
Full technical details and an of overview of the process will be available here.